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Thursday, May 5, 2005

'We the Christians...'

by Philocrites

Oh, wait! That's not how the Constitution begins. NPR's "Morning Edition" reported this morning on pseudo-historian David Barton's quest to Evangelize the past. The news program's Web site — which promises an audio file of the report later this morning — includes a sampling of the historical texts invoked by various sides in the ongoing debate about whether George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards intended to let heathens like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison infect this country with their modernist so-called Enlightenment crazy notions about secular government when they were writing the Constitution of the Christian States of America.

Look, the "wall of separation" between college campuses and the state isn't supposed to be an absolute barrier; people should be allowed and even encouraged to bring their book learning into the public square. Just because some people "believe" that Judge Roy Moore and Thomas Jefferson meant different things when they used the word "religion" doesn't mean that people can only hold those opinions privately. Go ahead, people of history degrees, speak your truth! Down with activist judges and their two-and-a-half-ton monuments!

Copyright © 2005 by Philocrites | Posted 5 May 2005 at 8:47 AM

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3 comments:

Robert Kern:

May 6, 2005 01:04 AM | Permalink for this comment

URL fix: Evangelize the past

Philocrites:

May 6, 2005 08:07 AM | Permalink for this comment

Thanks, Robert. Link fixed.

Philocrites:

May 6, 2005 09:51 AM | Permalink for this comment

Media Matters for America argues that the NPR reporter, Barbara Bradley Hagerty, hadn't listened carefully to her own interview subjects when she concluded her report with this line:

"While many Americans may travel a middle road, they are caught in the crossfire between those who believe that asserting Christian values is the greatest hope for America's future and those who see it as a threat."

What Hagerty missed, Media Matters says, is that "many believe that a clear delineation between church and state is a Christian value." The progressive media watchdog offers an alternative:

Hagerty's concluding statement would have been far more representative of the diverse views Hagerty's story presented -- and less dismissive of those who believe that Christian values are best defined as love, tolerance, ecumenicism, and concern for the less fortunate -- had she said something like this: "While many Americans may travel a middle road, they are caught in the crossfire between those who seek the government's imprimatur on their particular beliefs and those -- Christian and otherwise -- who believe a true separation of church and state is the greatest hope for America's future."

Bingo! (Thanks, Paul!)



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